Starry Nights
by Blake-Schawarz
Summary: this is the sequel to STORMY AFTERNOONS!! *cheers* it's still Rei/Kai, Rei wakes up in middle of the night, heads to the kitchen, and finds a figure sitting on the window seat


Reworked and better people! This is the sequel to 'Stormy Afternoons'. Please r/r. BTW, my muse has quit…so if anyone knows where there is a muse, looking for work, I know where there is work.

Rei half woke up and looked at the clock. 12:00 am. All of a sudden he had a craving for chocolate. He grabbed the slim silver torch on his beside table and padded out to the kitchen, shivering in the cold. He went out to the kitchen, following the small torch light on the floor. He looked out the window in the kitchen and saw a figure on the window seat. Kai walked over to him, quietly, and put a hand on their shoulder. The figure jumped and turned to look at him.

"Kitten, you startled me." Now Rei knew who it was, only one person called him Kitten, and that was only when they were alone, so the others didn't know the nickname.

"Kai, what are you doing?"

"Just thinking…"

"Do you want me to go?" Rei started to go back to the kitchen, but Kai slid his arm around his waist and pulled him closer Rei took that as a 'no' and sat down opposite Kai.

"No, you're OK…I'm just thinking, ya know?"

"Anything in particular?"

"The stars"

"Mmm…I used to think about them each night."

"All those theories through history, so many of them wrong…"

"I can't say I've ever looked at it that way, I always think of the stars as the playground of the dead. I know it's strange, I always seem to think of weird things like that." Rei stared out across the rooftops; his mind was a million miles away, at the end of the tournament when they had all been introduced to each other. He could see Kai in his minds' eye as easily as if it were yesterday, dark blue hair, lighter fringe, baggy blue pants, a black tank top and icy eyes. Icy red wine eyes, hardened by years under the wrath of Voltaire, eyes that Rei had carefully watched as they softened over the months they had spent together, slowly letting the pride of winning replace the pain. Rei sat on the floor, hugging his knees to his chest. Kai moved down beside him and lay on his back on the floor.

"Kitten? Were the stars as bright where you came from as they are here?"

"Yes, but that's because there are less lights on."

"Do you miss it?"

"Yeah, all the time. Everybody was so friendly there, and because it was so small everyone knew everyone else. Sometimes I wish I'd never left."

"Why did you leave?"

"Like I told you guys, to learn more, and because I think everybody should know about the White Tiger."

"Why was Lee so upset when you left?"

"Oh, that's kind of a long story, but mainly he was upset that I left with the bitbeast he thought was his. I'd taken Mariah aside the day before I left and explained to her why I was leaving, we'd kind of been together, a few kisses, it could have been more if I'd stayed. It hurt her when I left, we had a messy breakup, if you can call it that…anyway, Lee was upset that I upset Mariah so much, he always hated seeing her upset or hurt, right from the start. God, sometimes he went all weird when she scraped her knee."

"If everyone loved you that much, why did you leave them? Didn't you know how much it would hurt them?"

"I guess I kind of knew, but I also knew that I had to go." Rei unwrapped his right arm from around his knees and straightened out his right leg, his left arm still resting on his left leg. "I'm not sure why I left…there were some things between then and now that I wished I hadn't seen." Rei unwrapped his right arm from around his knees and absent mindedly started rubbing Taylor's stomach, making big circles with the palm of his hand, Taylor's eyes slid closed, listening to Cameron's soothing voice.

"So what did you do then?"

" It never happened. Finally, I decided to try to get my life back on track, I picked up a few jobs. I worked for the rich, in cafes, in orphanages, as a kitchenhand…I think I've worked as everything." Rei felt feelings and memories resurfacing that he had hidden for years. "I saw a _lot_ of things I will never be able to forget. Every night, I used to look up at the sky, at the stars and think _they are watching the same stars,_ and memories of everyone that I left behind would flash through my mind, like an old movie. Sometimes when I was looking at the sky, a little voice would tell me in the back of my head _it's going to be better tomorrow_…." Rei trailed off; watching the whirling images of people so long forgotten in places long since last visited.

"What did you see?" Kai asked, eyes still closed, forcing Rei to slow the whirling images and focus on them, to see the detail in each one.

"Staving children in the streets, with faces that tore at your heart, rape survivors who used to cry themselves to sleep each night. Pale teenagers looking for their next hit. Prostitutes who had nothing better to expect from life, who thought themselves only worth as much as what someone was willing to pay for them. Teenagers with gray hair and wrinkles, which look years older than they are, so weathered and worn, just waiting for their day to die their pain etched on their face. Pain that would never be washed away, no matter how hard they tried…Every now and again, the tiny thought would cross my mind…_everything will look better tomorrow_…"

"Why weren't you one of those people? I see no pain etched on your face."

"That's because it's etched inside, where no one can see it…On the streets, I quickly learnt how to nick food without losing my hand. When I was about 13 or 14 I started to get better jobs, because I was older and stronger. As I worked my way around, after leaving everything, I met a lot of people and saw a lot of things I would never had seen had I never left. Some brilliant things, marvelous beautiful things, and some awful things…terrible things that I hope no one else has to see. I hated being so secluded, and then having to beg for food on the streets, and now that I've seen the third way of living, I'm not in a hurry to go back to either way." Rei took his hand off Kai and stared out the window. Kai looked up to see why Rei had stopped, and saw him sitting and staring at the window, near tears as memories flashed past his eyes, unshed tears for far away people. Kai sat up and put his arm around Rei's shoulder and pulled him into a hug. Kai felt a wet drop on his shoulder. He looked at Rei and saw a wet streak down his cheek. 

"Kitten? Are you OK?" he whispered in his ear. "Kitten? Snap out of it." Rei looked at Kai, his eyes unfocussed.

"Then I met this girl, Leo. She was running from one family and looking for another. She told me every night that tomorrow would look better. Before she left, she gave me a phone number. She told me to ring them and they'd help me get my life back on track…"

Kai shook him until he focused back on him. "And one day tomorrow did look better didn't it?" he whispered.

So, what did y'all think? better? Worse? Look out for the others in this series, coming soon…


End file.
